Game of Thrones: Valar Dohaeris

The season premiere finally came and it was everything I was hoping for.  It starts off a little while after the Battle of Blackwater and spends the first episode catching us up on what has been happening with a few characters.  There were so many good things that I barely noticed that not all the main characters were featured.  Even without Arya, Bran, Jaime, Brianne, or Theon, there was still plenty of great stuff going on.

-Tyrion had a great moment with Tywin.  By great, I mean the scene was pretty gut-wrenching.  Tyrion asks his father to be named Lord of Casterly Rock, since he did a good job with protecting the city.  Tywin lets Tyrion know how he feels about him and how he would never give him Casterly Rock, since he killed Tywin’s wife.  It was definitely a bit harsh.

-Jon Snow finally meets Mance Rayder, the King-Beyond-the-Wall.  I was weary about the guy they cast as Mance, since in the books he seems like a guy who likes to play music and has a bit of a sense of humor.  It already seems like they made a good choice, just by the way he hopped off the window to introduce himself to Jon.

-Bronn remained awesome.  He informs Tyrion that he is a sell-sword and his rate is double to protect Tyrion from now on.  He also still has a hatred of the Kings Guard.  We almost got to see him pull his dagger on a couple of them.

-Davos is still alive and when he makes his way back to Stannis, his reward is to be tossed into a dungeon and threatened to be burned alive.  Stannis seems quite sane at this point.

-Robb seems to be having a good time making his way towards King’s Landing.  He goes to Harrenhal, where the Mountain seems to have killed all of his prisoners before leaving.  Needless to say, Karstark and Roose Bolton do not seem too thrilled with Jaime being freed by Robb’s mom.  At least Roose has his best hunter looking for Jaime and Brianne (I am guessing that would be Ramsay Snow).

-Daenerys’ story was probably the best.  She is on a ship heading to Astipor and needless to say, the Dothraki are not handling being on a boat very well.  At least her dragons are getting bigger.  Once they get to Astipor, she goes to purchase an army of Unsullied.  These are warrior eunuchs, who feel no pain and obey any order.  Their owner proves this by cutting off the nipple of one of them, who does not even flinch.

The owner was actually pretty funny.  He was insulting Daenerys by calling her a whore and whatnot, and then his girl would translate it to something nice.  He thought it was hilarious that she was upset that the Unsullied’s final test is to kill a baby from one of the slave women.  The slave owner’s are given a silver coin for the loss of a baby, not the mother.  Obviously Daenerys does not enjoy slaves or killing babies.  This will end well for the owner.

At the end of the episode, a man saves Daenerys and he reveals himself to be Barristan Selmy and he swears an oath to protect her since he failed her father and family.  It was a shame that they could not introduce him like they did in the book, especially with his pal, Strong Belwas.  It was much easier to conceal his identity in a book, but now they would either have to get a new actor, or really do a crazy make-up job.

Pumped for next week, which should give us a glimpse of what is happening with Bran and the rest of the gang.

Author: Ngewo